


In These Shallow Waters

by Kiseki1412



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient China, Alternate Universe - Historical, Fem!Rin, Gen, Inspired by Mulan (1998), Matsuoka Rin-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-01 04:50:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13287357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiseki1412/pseuds/Kiseki1412
Summary: There is a silent boy in an imaginary forest, and Rin is too old to play pretend.





	1. [Rin]

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the Cher Lloyd song "Sirens"

It isn't the sky.

It's not a mirage either, because Rin is traipsing around rice paddies on lotus-patterned shoes, trying to make sense of the figure in the water with a deadpan expression and the most strangely-colored eyes she has ever seen.

"What are you doing?" she asks, more than a little bit irritated by the stranger's presence. This is her father's rice field and he will not be pleased to know that a child-teen-male creature- _someone_  stomped all over the seedlings they had spent all morning setting out. (Upon closer inspection, there are two rows in particular which are about as straight as a chicken foraging in the yard, but Rin blames this on the blazing heat and the mud sloshing around her toes as she tried her hardest to stab and cover up roots in perfectly parallel lines and not break her back in the process.)

The boy blinks, slowly.

Rin taps her foot on the edge of the dike.

His answer comes in bubbles drifting and exploding upon the surface. He ducks under the water, perhaps out of shyness, or the realization that this is not what normal people should do. The paddies aren't even deep enough for...for whatever it is he's doing besides giving Rin a headache and ruining a potential harvest. 

Glaring at him doesn't work, and demanding proper answers doesn't seem to, either. Well then, the next logical thing to do would be to drag him out of the faux pond.

"I'm swimming," he says in monotone.

 _Swimming._  Right, of course.  This boy is crazy, of course. Dealing with lunatics is not Rin's forte, nor is it something she wants to deal with, ever. Unfortunately, there have been quite a few incidents within the vicinity of people going insane after a journey to the trading ports. They say it's the opium that does it. She's heard rumors of young lads sneaking contrabands into the local market, and if this boy is one of them, then, well, she'll just have to call Father for help.

"What's your name?" she asks instead, because her father happens to be a fisherman as well as a farmer, and this afternoon until tomorrow's sunset he'll be out earning a living on the fickle seas. Rin knows he would rather stay at home than ply the oceans for daily meals, but the debts are piling up and it's infinitely less painful to have your father away at work than rotting in prison.

Her father loves to swim, though, so maybe he's not as sad as mother is whenever he's gone. Rin also has a passion for swimming, even if the other girls tease her for it and the village elders shake their heads. She'd be dipping her feet in the lake by now, if not for this blue-eyed nuisance who popped up out of nowhere.

The stranger opens his mouth and closes it again, opting to gaze at the embankment instead of answering Rin's question.

That is just  _infuriating._  "Forgot how to speak, huh?" she taunts. "Why don't you do me a favor and get out of there and stop destroying my dad's hard work? Seriously, how on earth did you even end up here in the the first place?"

"I swam," he says.

 _Huh?  He swam? Wait, does that mean he dived into every single paddy from the outskirts of town all  the way here?_   "Are you out of your—"

"Haru."

"What?"

"My name. You asked earlier."

"Ha-ru," she enunciates. "My favorite season." He gives her a look that resembles a very bored, very exasperated gecko. Then he nods, perhaps to be polite, perhaps because he's not used to holding long conversations with people he's just met and Rin happens to be one of the most talkative children in the village,  or maybe it has to do with the fact that he was  _swimming_  in peace before she disturbed him five minutes ago. Whatever. He needs to leave and Rin needs to get back home. "Why are you here again? Don't you prefer splashing around in a lake or river or somewhere with more elbow room? I bet you can't even move your arms an inch without murdering plants left and right."

"The water here feels nice," he murmurs, floating on his back and several dozen tender stalks that Father had been so careful with.

"Uh-huh."

"It's calm."

"Okay."

"I like it."

"Right." And now Rin is tongue-tied. This boy must either be really, really, really out of it or he really, really, really loves water so much.

That's still no excuse for disturbing the baby rice.

Now Rin is mere seconds away from grabbing his hand and ordering him to stay away from their precious crop when another boy, a brown-haired lad this time, comes running toward them at full speed and drags Haru back to wherever they came from, apologizing profusely until they're out of sight.

Alright. Today four things happened. One, Rin transplanted rice for the very first time. Two, a weird boy named Haru decided it was high time to plunge his body in less than a foot deep of muddy water. Three, he has a friend named Mako-something  who appears to be well-versed in the art of locating said weird boy "each time a new body of water strikes his fancy."

And finally? Rin can't decide whether she dreamed the whole incident up or not.

Oh well. The clouds look a lot darker than they were a few hours ago. It seems there's a storm coming.


	2. [Haru]

His parents are fighting again.

He is outside with Makoto, staring at the water, thinking oceans are deep enough to build homes in. Oceans are loud enough.

“You can stay over again tonight,” Makoto says, perhaps in a  last-ditched effort to keep his friend from jumping into the pool.

Haruka nods, straining his neck for a better view of the mansion up the hill. Light burns steadily against the fortified walls framing the bedroom window, making him shiver. Their voices follow him all the way here.

He diverts his gaze to the ripples bouncing around his feet, watching how they breathe and die and always, always crash into each other. Haru thinks of the red-haired _nong_ child he saw at the paddies last week, the one who scolded Haru for _endangering_ the rice field of his — or perhaps, _her_ — father, and it’s disconcerting to know that had their roles been reversed, he wouldn’t have bothered to do the same.

People say the Nanases were born under august stars. Landed gentry, a cut above the other three classes, entitled by virtue of wealth and intelligence to the comforts in life reserved for a select few. _What a farce_ , Haruka scoffs. The pillow on his bed has been missing for days and his parents have yet to notice.

He falls asleep waiting for his house to stop exploding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Nong=farmer class  
> Haru is from the Shi (scholar) class, who were part of the aristocracy


End file.
